The present invention concerns a hinged closure for a container, in particular a drink bottle, and a container equipped with such a hinged closure.
Hinged closures are being used to seal a variety of containers, in particular containers made of plastic, glass, metal as well as containers made using paper and cardboard, e.g. containers made from laminated paper foil. The containers can vary in their shape and can be designed as bottles, tubes, boxes or any other shape. Such containers serve in the food, cosmetics, pharmaceutical, chemical or packaging industry in general to store and to supply various substances. Such substances may be liquid, powdery, pasty or gel-like. In the food and packaging industry, such hinged closures are often used to seal beverage containers.
A particular desire in functional hinged closures is to be met in the supply of sports drinks producers and vendors of drinking bottles for the sports market, e.g. for cycling. A particular aspect in this respect is the demand of recyclability of such highly functional hinged closures as a mass product. Therefore, it is desirable to manufacture the hinged closures inexpensively while remaining highly functional.
One desirable function of such hinged closures, used e.g. for sealing sports drink bottles, is in particular the possibility of a comfortable, especially one-handed use. The upper part of the hinged closure should reveal the outlet located in the lower part of the hinged closure when open, and it should not, e.g. for gravitational reasons, flip back from the open position unintendedly. It is known to achieve this by applying a spring mechanism forcing the upper part of the hinged closure to remain in the open position. In addition to metal springs and elastic plastic materials it is known to use integral hinges employing an elasticity resulting from the particular hinge design. Such spring closures are often disadvantageous in that the open position of the upper part is defined unsatisfactorily and might vary during the life time of the hinge due to material fatigue.
It is the object of the present invention to introduce an improved hinged closure and a container equipped with such closure, whereby the hinged closure can in particular be manufactured inexpensively.